But how is it that he was showing up in the feeds of so many people who never heard of him before? So it goes when we are still in the earliest days of Promoted Tweets.

Lokken paid $10 for 10 evenly-distributed days of Twitter exposure, which resulted in 7,180 impressions, 929 engagements — which meant someone was interested enough to acknowledge him somehow — 32 retweets and 53 favourites, with about 20 new followers helping him to break a total of 250.

And for what? An attempt to try out an advertising system that marketing giants have still not mastered. For now, pretty much anyone with a non-vulgar message to spread can apparently figure out how to join the Promoted Tweet party.

But even major corporations seem uncertain about how effective Twitter will be for them. Canadian hamburger chain Harvey’s at least raised an eyebrow or two in promoting its condiment options with the words “Every squirt counts.”

Meanwhile, when it came to trying to draw attention to Doritos Tacos Locos, the Taco Bell Canada account littered strategically targeted feeds with an alarming message: “BREAKING #TACOBELL NEWS! #DLT IS HERE TO STAY…FOR LIFE #DLT4LIFE.”

Whether this new kind of advertising will work in the long run remains to be seen. After all, Facebook feeds and sidebars continue to contain a lot of crap. And similar spam has become increasingly unavoidable on Twitter — like this effort to lure user attention based on the vanity that drives our current #FakeJobCentury:

At least Lokken seemed to have a sense of humour about it all. So, we got him to answer some questions about the experience.

What was your motivation for buying the promoted tweet?

I wanted to try it in a low risk way because I work in marketing but didn’t want to spend my boss’s money nor that of my clients if it wasn’t going to be worth it. A lot of social and search advertising is bid-based and sometimes you just have to get hands-on and make some mistakes to get better.

How was the tweet approved for distribution?

The approval process appeared to be pretty seamless. First, I tried to promote a picture of a spider I drew but my image tweets weren’t populating in Twitter’s ad dashboard. Some more research is needed there on my end. Basically, Twitter shows you the last five tweets by default and you just check or uncheck. You can dig down further but I had no need.

The targeting criteria I chose were all devices; all of Canada rather than a specific area; male and female users — although the fact that I have 50 per cent more impressions in the male category leads me to think more companies are targeting women on Twitter now, so those bids cost a little more; and interests that reflect my own: Marketing, music and comedy.

Plus, I targeted the followers of — or people similar to — four different accounts: Tia Kelly, social media manager for UnBounce, who is respected in the Vancouver social community; Mark Little of Picnicface, my favourite Canadian comedian; Tourism Prince George, from my hometown; and Lucas Gardner, the funniest man on the internet who is responsible for @Bill_Nye_Tho, the most famous Twitter parody account of all time.

Response has been fun and interesting if nothing else. No giant corporations have called with cushy job offers (HINT: Vancouver Whitecaps and Giants) but I’ve made some friends. I’d say the response has been 50 per cent positive, 25 per cent neutral and 25 per cent insults directed at me.